Let’s say this is all true, Sunny, and Nick is a rank hypocrite… where does that leave the formal partnering with Begg/CP by AI and defenestration of someone who objected to both Begg’s mistreatment and the moral fillip given to him, as an individual, by AI’s formal partnering with Begg/CP [cont. page 94].

Cohen’s article is no different to Con Coughlin of the Telegraph…

Absolutely right – it’s the Principia Wingnuttia: That the stupider wingnut will say bluntly what the movement’s leaders have to dress up in soaring rhetoric. Although of course, the Principia is supposed to refer to dumbass bloggers and grassroots activists, and not to columnists in national newspapers.

And given that the whole point of the current Decent Left-led campaign against Amnesty is that the org should be careful who it associates with, why does Nick feel that it should take advice on human rights protection from someone who has spent much of the last decade penning a series of very fishy defences of human rights violations? After all, Nick has form here… http://bit.ly/bOJN4T

AI “made” some mistakes?

It’s still making those mistakes.
They’re promoting Begg in London on Tuesday.
Maybe see you there?!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article7026277.ece

This is the most stupid bit, even beating “Amnesty has probably been taken over by Communists”.
“More disgracefully, when Gita Sahgal, head of Amnesty’s gender unit, and one of the most principled feminist writers I have read, complained that her employers were treating “Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban” as a “human rights defender”, Amnesty suspended the feminist and stuck by the Islamist.”
You could also say Amnesty suspended the employee who bad-mouthed the organisation to the press and stuck by the victim of torture, but Nick Cohen won’t because Nick Cohen thinks he’s in an episode of Thundercats.

“To put it another way, Amnesty is living in the make-believe world of a phoney war, where it thinks that liberals are free to form alliances with defenders of clerical fascists who want to do everything in their power to suppress liberals, most notably liberal-minded Muslims.”
See? Human rights are for people we agree with.

This is why I will vote for any party that promises Nick Cohen will get a paper cut on his bell-end every morning.

‘He starts by telling us that, “virtually everyone involved pretends that we can enjoy [liberties] without paying a price,”’

Other peoples liberties ARE the price we pay for our own: that’s the contract.

But as Alec is implying, Cohen isn’t the issue here: AI are. This is a comment on a comment on the issue (and okay, my comment is a comment on your comment on Cohen’s comment, etc) and doesn’t address the fact that Amnesty have compromised on human rights by actively promoting someone opposed to everything they claim to stand for.

We get it: you believe in partisanship. You think anyone not singing from their leader’s songsheet should be brought into line or cast out. Many of us disagree. We think Amnesty would be stronger if it took a long look at the people it is *promoting* rather than merely defending.

Oh good old Cohen. And silly us thinking he meant human rights were non-negotiable!!!

Cohen isn’t the issue here: AI are.

Call me mental if you will, but I was under the impression that torture, extrajudicial detention and human rights violations were the issue here.

And of course, the subject of this particular post is an article in which one of the ringleaders of the current campaign denouncing Amnesty for forgetting its mission to protect human rights… Makes a bullshit, ripped-from-a-bad-episode-of-24 defence of the government’s right to keep its collusion with torturers secret.

Nick is, after all, leading the charge against Amnesty. The fact that he openly states that the courts and those with an interest in human rights should STFU about state torture if it damages our relationship with the US or hands a propaganda victory to the enemy is surely relevant to a discussion of Amnesty and its campaigns against state torture.

Assuming that the far left has not taken control of Amnesty, and that may be a generous assumption

oh dear god.

Hey, Flying Rodent, remember our ding-dong a little while ago about ‘human rights’ and ‘political correctness’?

One personal experience I mentioned related to an anxious teacher telling me I was forbidden from capturing my sons first day at school on film – half jokingly I suggested it might have infringed somebody’s ‘human rights’, an idea quickly poo-poo’d by you (see comment 60)
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/07/16/political-incorrectness-gone-mad/

But look at this – even Edinburgh City Council are now trembling before the all encompassing powers of the Human Rights Act
http://news.scotsman.com/nativityphotoban/When-does-a-right-become.2387414.jp

According to this item, “such are the problems when it comes to following human rights legislation. Edinburgh City Council had felt compelled to introduce the restriction, just in case any footage or pictures ended up being used inappropriately – in particular by paedophiles”.

These kinds of frivolous dilution are more of a threat to the Acts credibility rather than the bloated opinion of a Guardianista, surely?

Cohen’s article seems contradictory.
He appears to say that the judges in the appeal are not really upholding universal human rights with the inference that he sees that as a bad thing. But at the same time seems to argue that human rights always comes at a cost, inferring that is how life is and liberals should wake up to this fact.
His view on torture is baffling when he criticizes the fact that judging it ‘ not to work’ is somehow supportive of the concept of torture.
He talks about a phoney war but that “Every third-rate political pundit has ruled that we cannot say that we are in a “war on terror” which appears to say its a real war after all.
His closing sentiment seems to call for the upholding of universal human rights whatever the consequences whereas earlier he bemoans the fact that “the Mohamed ruling provided a propaganda victory for our enemies”.
I really dont where Cohen stands on any of this.

Well, I live in Edinburgh and I can confirm that both The Scotsman and Edinburgh City Council are institutionally full of shit. As the legal expert says, “human rights is perhaps not the right phrase for some of their decisions. In this case, there is a worry about paedophiles so that makes it more complex.”

Yet again, you’ve got a public authority taking a bullshit decision for bullshit, arse-covering reasons, and blaming it on the HRA because they know the public have been fed so much scaremongering bullshit about the HRA. It’s a classic of the form.

Sunny: “He starts by telling us that, “virtually everyone involved pretends that we can enjoy [liberties] without paying a price,” before regurgitating White House bluster about how there would be hell to pay over the Binyam Mohammed revelations. Oh, you mean we should defend liberties and human rights except when US national security officials don’t like it?”

I think that you have totally misunderstood Nick Cohen’s argument. Nick is arguing that the British government should uphold human rights, full stop. This will piss off the Americans and others; we should be aware of this and then do the right thing, acknowledging the consequences. The British courts should not be asked to consider diplomatic consequences or relationships with foreign intelligence agencies when judging whether human rights have been abused; they should simply judge the human rights case. And if that allows unpleasant people to walk our streets, then we have to live with it. Nick: “… the case for basing societies on liberties is not a utilitarian one.”

Regarding AI, he makes the point that it should stick to its brief of upholding rights, rather than allying itself with non-human rights organisations. Further, he reminds us that the abuse of human rights by the UK and USA fuels the propaganda of extremists who oppose us.

To quote Nick Cohen: “I hope that they (AI) and the judges will return to where they were before and remember that promoting human rights is a hard and often thankless task that has to be done regardless of the consequences.”

If you read the piece slowly in its entirety, it argues exactly the opposite of what most people here are presuming.

I really dont where Cohen stands on any of this.

A least you admit it, instead of doing, as Sunny and most other commentors seem to have done, to completely misunderstand the piece at a sentence-by-sentence, word-by word level, and then fill in that gap of understanding with some boilerplate stereotype of something that someone they disagreed with might have said. Sometimes this is actually done explicitly, using phrases like ‘oh you mean’, or ‘I can see the slogan’, or ‘this is what he is saying’.

It is not a particularly difficult piece to understand, doesn’t contain any unusually complex sentence structures or arcane vocabulary. And it fits in perfectly with his long-term repeated theme that governments may be forced to make messy compromises with various nasty political and religious factions, but left wing campaign groups should be the ones complaining about those compromises.

Not the ones making equally bad ones of their own.

In Cold War terms, you can’t fight Washington by adopting too close an alliance with Moscow. A least, for any definition of fight that actually means ‘persuade to change’.

Cue someone saying ‘oh by that, you mean Amnesty are terrorists’…

I’ve added a point to my article.

This is the bit that annoys me a lot. Cohen is defining “our enemies” who are handed a propaganda victory as Islamists he doesn’t like. But a better definition of these people are ‘people who don’t believe in universal human rights and liberalism‘.

So to then argue that we can fight “our enemies” by restricting liberties because they want to restrict our liberties is perhaps the stupidest point made in this entire discussion. Nick Cohen isn’t a friend of the human rights movement – he is part of the problem.

I hope that they (AI) and the judges will return to where they were before

hm, before when…? Before the Saghal case, I take it. Funnily enough Nick’s been arguing that they were already in ‘moral decline’ before that – he was also arguing in favour of torture before that too.

he’s all over the place on these issues and has been ever since his ‘conversion’.

i think you’ll find that this was a longer piece rehashing the same old arguments about the AI case, but his editors forced him to come up with something new, so he added the contradictory stuff about British judges.

To reply to Alec above:

where does that leave the formal partnering with Begg/CP by AI and defenestration of someone who objected to both Begg’s mistreatment and the moral fillip given to him, as an individual, by AI’s formal partnering with Begg/CP

I think “formal partnering” is disingenuous here; just because Amnesty (or any other organisation) agree with someone that a specific act was wrong, does not mean that they therefore endorse everything that someone says. I don’t see why so many people are arguing that, just because Amnesty have Moazzam Begg as a speaker (because he was detained without trial), they ‘promote’ his views. David Aaronovitch used the term ‘poster boy’ of Begg. Has anyone seen posters of Begg in anyone’s home? Is he really the Guevara de nos jours?

As Flying Rodent has said, it’s true that Ms Saghal has been ‘defenestrated’ and it’s true that she has objected to his appearance at Amnesty events as well as his detention, but she wasn’t suspended for the first of those; her statement
http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5759197/gita-sahgal-a-statement.thtml
implies that she was suspended after her story appeared in the Sunday Times and solely as a result of same.

Soru: compromises are part of life. Everyone in politics has to make them; left-wing organisations too.

#So to then argue that we can fight “our enemies” by restricting liberties because they want to restrict our liberties is perhaps the stupidest point made in this entire discussion.#

Good point but maybe Cohen thinks that some things are best left unsaid because they are too embarrassing or ‘inconvenient’. Possibly his position is something akin to…”Please don’t be under the misapprehension that this blog has a laissez-faire comments policy where commenters can get away with whatever they want to say on account of their ‘freedom of speech’. That is most definitely not the case.”?

…Who knows?

is perhaps the stupidest point made in this entire discussion

Yes, but it is not one Cohen can remotely be read as making in the text.

If you draw that conclusion from what he has written here, then that conclusion is yours, something _you_ think. The text may come from the author, but the subtext is the reader’s.

Don’t worry, everyone has dark illiberal thoughts from time to time, wants to do harm to those who threaten them.

The thing is to recognise those thoughts for what they are, and dismiss them, not externalise them and imagine that they are things that only some scary bogeyman named Cohen would say…

@14 Sunny: “So to then argue that we can fight “our enemies” by restricting liberties because they want to restrict our liberties is perhaps the stupidest point made in this entire discussion.”

Indeed, it would be a stupid point had Nick Cohen actually made it. But he provides the opposite argument. That we should give our enemies the rights that they would deny to us. That they should not be illegally detained for thought crimes or tortured under any circumstances.

I’ll go along with your definition of “our enemies”, of course, because it is more universal than Nick’s definition. The BNP, Sikh militants and the Red Brigades are enemies too, and they deserve the same human rights as our friends.

Nick Cohen has become a voodoo figure to many people on the left. I think that he has been too uncritical of Israel and the IDS on occasions, but also believe that he has been unjustifiably attacked at other times. Many vile comments about him on the Guardian CiF have been passed by moderators. On this occasion, he argues in favour of liberal values; but because he has been a bad boy in the past, some people cannot read his words without prejudice.

Ironically, I think that many of Nick Cohen’s arguments are shared in a piece by Dave Osler here on Friday.

We’re back where we were after all those nasty reviews for What’s Left?, aren’t we? Nick’s fans banging around the internet explaining What He Really Meant and expressing incredulity that all these horrible liberals have misunderstood him so badly. Perhaps not a fantastic outcome for a fan of the Orwellian plain style, you’d think. Maybe there’s something about the way he writes?

Nick’s style over much of the last decade has been very similar to Chris Hitchens’, i.e. to take some bluntly unobjectionable statement – The invasion of Iraq will very likely result in disaster or It’s possible to oppose American foreign policy without bending over for terrorists – and then present it as some kind of pointy-headed, relativist conceit of posh, smug, reflexively anti-western Miles, Giles and Samanthas.

So it goes with this article – hey kids, we need to accept that our refusal to practice illegal and morally indefensible acts harms national security and emboldens terrorists! How very innocuous and sensible that sounds, until you start to wonder why he’s even going there in the first place. After all, torture is illegal, has been for god knows how long. Why do we have to consider the potential harm our refusal to commit crimes could do?

After all, our refusal to unleash death squads in Britain or use nuclear weapons in the war on terror also surely harms national security and emboldens terrorists, doesn’t it? Both would reduce the number of terrorists that threaten us, and both are utterly illegal and immoral. Yet I imagine even the Observer might smell a rat in a column about how Pollyannaish judges who desire an easy life comfort themselves with the thought that, in upholding human rights by forbidding drill-weilding death squads in a time of war, they are not inviting any bad consequences.

All of which is why I mentioned the Principia Wingnuttia – Nick pens the Liberal judges won’t face the reality of their foolishness columns, while the likes of Con Coughlin just come right out and call them accomplices of Bin Laden. That dog whistle, once sounded, doesn’t often prompt its target audience to start barking about how we must redouble our efforts to expose the human rights violations of our own governments. Quite the opposite, in fact.

That we should give our enemies the rights that they would deny to us. That they should not be illegally detained for thought crimes or tortured under any circumstances.

And yet he’s endorsing the call made by Jonathan Evans that we should be careful of handing “our enemies” a “propaganda victory”??

@21 Sunny: “And yet he’s endorsing the call made by Jonathan Evans that we should be careful of handing “our enemies” a “propaganda victory”??”

To be fair, we should read Nick Cohen’s words: “Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, added a further complication when he said that the Mohamed ruling provided a propaganda victory for our enemies. And I am sure he was right.”

There is a difference in tone between Sunny’s quote and Cohen’s words. To me, Nick Cohen is just stating the obvious. There is no cautionary warning to anyone, merely a statement that when governments abuse people, it provides “propaganda” against us.

It isn’t even propaganda if the facts are accurately represented. When governments illegally imprison and torture people, demonstrated with evidence, that’s news or history rather than propaganda.

After all, torture is illegal, has been for god knows how long.

1978 in the UK, and it’s still routine in countries where at least 80% of the people of the world live.

The thing about making pragmatic compromises with circumstances is it really helps to have some kind of vague understanding of what those circumstances are.

If career intelligence agents frequently screw that up to the point where its a Hollywood cliché, it really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that campaign organisations do too. The point is not never making a mistake, but how you act after it’s found you have made one.

Sunny is on record as thinking that Amnesty is the kind of organisation that will recognise that it screwed up, will:
Reinstate Gita, have discussions about her concerns and deal with them. Say it will review its relationship with CP and MB and put joint events on hold until that has been done.’

Cohen does appear more sceptical, thinks it is more likely that they will dig themselves in deeper defending their current line.

It will be interesting to see who is proven right.

@20 FlyingRodent
I gather that you don’t like Nick Cohen’s writing much nowadays? And that good old Hitch completely lost the plot when he backed the Iraq invasion?

Certainly in my mind, both writers got it wrong about Iraq and have delivered endless, agonising essays in defence of that position. But does it mean that they are entirely bonkers? Is it not possible that, once in a blue moon, Nick Cohen argues a lefty liberal point with which you could agree?

I somewhat concur about Cohen’s writing style. Sometimes the argument goes adrift from the supporting facts. About three paragraphs down, though thankfully the paragraphs are brief. And what about your own style? It’s doesn’t match Hemingway for lucidity, does it? But style is a choice.

Your argument is that Nick Cohen is dog whistling that, aha, these crafty people escape justice (ie imprisonment and torture) by exploiting UK human rights legislation and that Something Should Be Done; in that, you are calumnifying Cohen who argues the opposite; and given that LibCon readers utterly fail to comprehend Nick Cohen’s real intent, we can assume that Daily Mail followers will similarly miss the alleged dog whistle.

There’s some odd stuff there, Soru (@24). If career intelligence agents frequently screw that up to the point where its a Hollywood cliché, it really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that campaign organisations do too.

First, Hollywood cliches don’t always reflect the real world. (Nick Cohen specifically argued that point: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/15/comment.film
Second, intelligence agents work in the dark, so to speak; it’s easier to screw up when you metaphorically can’t see what you’re doing. It DOESN’T follow that ‘campaign organisations’ would too. It’s true that they do, but because, as Alexander Pope had it, “To err is human”.

You also really want it taken as a given that Amnesty have “screwed up” yet as far as I can tell, they’re using a guy who was held without trial (no one disputes that) and may have been tortured – Amnesty is against both practices – to talk about his experiences. If he were using his platform with Amnesty to promote, say, the killing of British troops, or forcing women to wear Burkhas, I’d agree that they should drop him: I’ve seen no evidence of this.

Charlieman @24: I don’t understand your final paragraph. If LibCon readers misread Cohen (as you say we have, and hear a dog whistle where none is), why should Mail readers read him ‘correctly’? Something about Cohen’s style damns him to being misunderstood by everyone.

@26 Dave Weeden

To quote myself: “…and given that LibCon readers utterly fail to comprehend Nick Cohen’s real intent, we can assume that Daily Mail followers will similarly miss the alleged dog whistle.”

My intent was that Nick Cohen’s argument is clear enough if you read the piece fully and without prejudice. If you start off hating Nick Cohen, you’ll miss the nuances, because you’ll have read one paragraph and incorrectly blown a fuse.

The Daily Mail followers will miss the dog whistle because it does not exist. Those on the left who thought they heard a dog whistle were mistaken from hearing an echo of their bias against the author.

Nick Cohen is employed by Guardian/Observer newspapers because he is a contrary writer. On this occasion he was not being contrary and delivered a classical liberal argument about human rights. Some people think that it cannot be so because of the name of the writer.

I’m none the wiser, am baffled but will try to understand. My hunch is that Cohen is baffling himself or is that just my projection?

I think Nick Cohen’s argument is a bit incoherent and I was pissed off with a defence he made of torture a while ago, but I don’t think he’s been read right by some commenters here.

“Nick is, after all, leading the charge against Amnesty. The fact that he openly states that the courts and those with an interest in human rights should STFU about state torture if it damages our relationship with the US or hands a propaganda victory to the enemy is surely relevant to a discussion of Amnesty and its campaigns against state torture.”

What he said was that you should make a moral stand against torture (it’s wrong) rather than a utilitarian one (it doesn’t work). But there may be a price to pay for that.

That’s how I read the first few paragraphs anyway. That seems to be a reasonable argument.

The rest of it was about how we are in a kind of war against radical Islam but that this is not acknowledged.

I did get a faint hint that if it was acknowledged that we were at war the rules of the game would change, but I don’t think the article hangs together at all well and is below his usual standard, as he’s usually clear enough.

KB Player @ 29,

Leaving ticking bombs aside for a moment.

Would it be wrong to make the arguement that torture is both morally wrong and it doesn’t work?

@29 KB Player: “I did get a faint hint that if it was acknowledged that we were at war the rules of the game would change…”

No, the argument is consistent. No torture, no illegal apprehension. When closing the piece, Nick Cohen questions the consistency of others to support liberal values. He argues that AI is compromised by association with Islamists. Correctly.

In his final sentence, Cohen states: “They [judges/AI] could equally become so disillusioned that they give up, and in a time of liberal betrayal that would be the greatest betrayal of all.”

To those who claim Cohen didn’t mean what his words appear to mean,

What does the following sentence mean?

“Listen to the current debate on rights, however, and you will find that virtually everyone involved pretends that we can enjoy them without paying a price”

To me that means that all but a few pretend there is no price to pay for ‘rights’. But I’m not aware of anyone that does pretend there is no price to pay for rights.

What about when the judges “comforted themselves with the Pollyannaish notion that there could be no bad consequences for the espionage agencies”?

A reading of the judgement suggests otherwise (e.g. paras 51, 172). Does Cohen then mean the opposite of what he wrote?

When Cohen wrote, “Because an American judge had already released details of the Mohamed case, [Neuberger] found it “impossible to believe that the US government would object to the publication” by the English courts”, did he really mean that Neuberger believed this (para 128), or does he really mean that Neuberger said this is what Mohamed’s solicitors said (because that is in fact what the judgement says)?

Charlieman @ 31

I take your point and think you’re right. I don’t think the argument is built very well though.

Douglas @ 30

No I don’t think it’s wrong. Some people can only be convinced by a utilitarian argument – though they seem to be the ones who cite the ticking bomb scenario.

Whether you liked him or not, what Nick Cohen was doing in the last few years was attempting to save the left from itself, from those bits of the left willing to accommodate right wing Islamism, and speak for the true left – so to speak. But today’s observer column shows that Cohen is no more championing those liberal values against the enemy accommodated by the left, he is now on the other side – he should reject this article as piffle. No longer is he a renegade of the left preparing it for the fight by introspection and rooting out dead weight, he is himself the enemy.

NIck has no problem writing clearly when the need to Condemn! person (x) is urgent enough. The reason why Nick’s readers have to go chasing around the internet so often explaining what he really meant to people is that he descends into incoherence when he’s trying to smuggle Some Bullshit past us.

Let’s look at this sequentially. He’s saying that Pollyannaish judges tell themselves comforting tales to avoid harsh realities, realities such how the illegality of torture is aiding terrorists; there’s some general burble about his usual liberal bugbears (Metrosexuals! Ha ha, those preening fags!) and his usual generous assessment of Amnesty International.

Short summary* – (Studiously ignores massive American black prison/torture/murder network) It’s bad enough the liberals want to endanger us by forbidding torture, but those traitorous bastards at Amnesty want us to listen to what mental Islamists who have been tortured say about it! Propaganda fail!

It’s incoherent because it’s dog whistle bullshit. It’s a symbol of how far we’ve fallen that a modern journalist can talk about liberalism and torture in the same sentence without the readers’ editor saying What the fuck are you talking about? Torture is illegal and immoral – why are you even discussing it, far less kidding on that not doing it is some kind of concession to wussy left-wingers?

Try reading through the article with every reference to “torture” replaced with “drilling holes in skulls” and it becomes pretty clear what’s going on here – it’s a clear attempt to portray objections to torture as suspect at best, while heavily downplaying the actually existing black prison network the Americans admit to operating

Throw in Nick’s previous meanderings on how torture is No Biggie because Terrorism! …http://bit.ly/bOJN4T... and it stops looking like a “classical liberal” restatement of the case against torture, and more like frantic Hey, look how horrible Amnesty are! hand waving and misdirection. Which it is.

*Shorter summary – Bullshitter will tell you what the real crime is.

I’ve always been uncomfortable with the “torture doesn’t work” argument. Firstly because I’m not convinced it’s actually true – I mean it may not always produce accurate information but even then it may still serve a purpose. But also because what if it were conclusively proved that it does work – are we then going to change our position and claim that it’s ok to use it after all? Clearly not (in the case of myself and many of the commentators here anyway), so what is the point of using it as an argument? And that is basically the point Cohen is making – I don’t think he is advocating the use of torture in any way (although he hasn’t always been clear on the subject in the past).

Having said that, and having seen KB Player’s comment #33, it is sometimes neccessary to point out the absurdity of “ticking bomb” scenarios.

I also think Nick’s fans could do with another quick look at exactly what it is that the Americans have been doing for the past few years, and what it is Nick’s actually talking about here. There seems to be a general thread running through much of the coverage that the Saghal case is getting that okay, the black prisons are bad, but Amnesty are bastards bastards bastards.

We’re not talking about Guantanamo here, nor are we talking about some bloke being kept awake all night. We’re talking about a giant, global network of black prisons into which inmates vanish, beyond judicial oversight and sometimes hope of return.

Let’s not forget that the whole aim of the sleep deprivation, beatings, deafening music and stress positions has been to drive inmates out of their minds to make them sign false confessions that will then justify and validate the practice of driving them out of their minds to sign false confessions. The torturers, murderers and jailors will never see justice, having been granted immunity, and the disappeared inmates – an unquantifiable number of persons both guilty and innocent – will never be accounted for.

It’s a Kafkaesque nightmare, one that is a considerably larger scandal than it would be if Amnesty’s staff lined up to publicly blow Osama Bin Laden himself, and the fact that this whole Saghal campaign is being conducted with barely any reference to this international outrage substantially reduces its credibility, IMHO.

14. Sunny H – “So to then argue that we can fight “our enemies” by restricting liberties because they want to restrict our liberties is perhaps the stupidest point made in this entire discussion. Nick Cohen isn’t a friend of the human rights movement – he is part of the problem.”

Sorry but I don’t see where Nick Cohen argues for the restriction of our liberties. Perhaps I was not reading the article as carefully as I could have, but it seems to me that he is criticising the refusal to face up to the reality of the situation by much of the Left. Not calling for any suspected friend of al-Qaeda to be connected to the main power by his testicles. And Amnesty is a great example of this. They really seem to think that pushing an Islamist agenda, giving their credibility to an Islamist by sharing a platform with them, is a cost-free activity. That they are not contributing to the problem. They are. Cohen isn’t.

Amnesty is living in the make-believe world… I worry about what will happen when they realise that… the Islamists they embrace aren’t nice metrosexuals….

Well someone is definitely living in a make-believe world, he’s at least got that much right.

24. soru – “1978 in the UK, and it’s still routine in countries where at least 80% of the people of the world live.”

The Five Techniques were specifically not called Torture by the European Courts. Torture has been illegal in the UK for much longer than that – and even longer in England. Scotland happily torturing witches. I doubt that Guy Fawkes was the last to be tortured but he was probably not far off it.

And notice that no one gives a damn whether 80 percent of the world tortures. No one even cares whether these Islamists want to introduce it into Britain. There is no word of criticism from the Left when Islamists do it (and it was and probably still is necessary in a Sharia system given the lack of juries and the odd uses of oaths). The only problem arises if someone can draw a tenuous connection with the West. Then the Left gets outraged.

38. FlyingRodent – “I also think Nick’s fans could do with another quick look at exactly what it is that the Americans have been doing for the past few years, and what it is Nick’s actually talking about here.”

Well if you think it will help. I don’t think anyone much is defending water boarding and the Americans. What Nick Cohen seems to be pointing out is that you cannot fight this war when you think you’re main enemy is the West and in government. As long as people simply do not take the threat seriously, it cannot be dealt with properly. That does not mean going all the way towards water boarding but it does mean, I think, not sharing a platform with Begg. At least the Guardian seems to be getting it given the large number of Islamists they no longer allow free reign on their comment pages. But a lot of other people have not woken up to this fact yet.

“We’re talking about a giant, global network of black prisons into which inmates vanish, beyond judicial oversight and sometimes hope of return.”

And your problem with this is what precisely? The world is full of “black” prisons where people disappear and are never heard of again. There is a very strong correlation between running such prisons and support from the Left – see Cuba and North Korea and Vietnam and China in the old days. Hell, look at the ANC’s record of treating their own. Why is it only a problem when someone can make a spurious case about the US?

“Let’s not forget that the whole aim of the sleep deprivation, beatings, deafening music and stress positions has been to drive inmates out of their minds to make them sign false confessions that will then justify and validate the practice of driving them out of their minds to sign false confessions.”

Well no it isn’t. There is not even a lot of evidence it does drive people out of their minds. But what it produces is co-operation. It works. It may also some of the time produce a false confession, but there is no denying that is not the aim. Nor is the aim to drive them insane. The aim is to get a confession. Which by and large they do.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Principia Wingnuttia, in the flesh.

I’d like, if I may, to rephrase SMFS’s point…

There is no word of criticism from the Left when Islamists do it (and it was and probably still is necessary in a Sharia system etc…).

Generalised comments like this have all the weight of a falling drop of phlegm. Let’s not descend into the ol’ playground games of “people who assume my political trajectory have less enthusiasm for torture than people who generally share your views“.

43. FlyingRodent – “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Principia Wingnuttia, in the flesh.”

I hope that refers to me. I can show you a complete lack of coherent thought.

44. BenSix – “Generalised comments like this have all the weight of a falling drop of phlegm. Let’s not descend into the ol’ playground games of “people who assume my political trajectory have less enthusiasm for torture than people who generally share your views“.”

Well no they do not. It goes to the heart of what the complaint is. There is no point arguing over torture if torture is not the issue. As you can see with much of the Left every day. If we are not talking about what really divides us, we need to find out what it is. I do not deny people on my side of politics are often less than condemnatory of torture by their allies. But that is not Nick Cohen’s point. And the stubborn refusal to even consider what his opinion was proves my point. Something else divides us here and it is not torture. No one is in favour of that. Not even Nick Cohen.

So much for subtlety, I commend you on your apt choice of handle.

But just to take this at face value for a second, ‘the Left’ are at fault for obsessing about the failings of the west – ridiculous minutiae such as our elected government’s complicity in torture. What they should be doing is facing up to the Islamist menace. OK. But then you and Nick Cohen are making exactly the same mistake, by banging on and on about Amnesty International, of all things. Is AI’s behaviour really the most pressing issue of the day? Don’t you know there’s a war on, damn it?

Flying Rodent wrote:

“Let’s not forget that the whole aim of the sleep deprivation, beatings, deafening music and stress positions has been to drive inmates out of their minds to make them sign false confessions that will then justify and validate the practice of driving them out of their minds to sign false confessions. The torturers, murderers and jailors will never see justice, having been granted immunity, and the disappeared inmates – an unquantifiable number of persons both guilty and innocent – will never be accounted for.

“It’s a Kafkaesque nightmare, one that is a considerably larger scandal than it would be if Amnesty’s staff lined up to publicly blow Osama Bin Laden himself, and the fact that this whole Saghal campaign is being conducted with barely any reference to this international outrage substantially reduces its credibility, IMHO.”

Absolutely spot on.

“The world is full of “black” prisons where people disappear and are never heard of again.There is a very strong correlation between running such prisons and support from the Left – see Cuba and North Korea and Vietnam and China in the old days. Hell, look at the ANC’s record of treating their own. Why is it only a problem when someone can make a spurious case about the US?”

It’s not, obviously. Try searching Google for Amnesty and Cuba and prisons? Or any of the other countries on that list. You must know this, surely?

SMFS,

“We’re talking about a giant, global network of black prisons into which inmates vanish, beyond judicial oversight and sometimes hope of return.”

And your problem with this is what precisely?

Er… jebus, where do we begin? No accountability, no respect for civil liberties (right to a fair trial, right to challenge the circumstances of one’s detention, right not to be incarcerated arbitrarily and made to endure horrible circumstances…).

FlyingRodent,

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Principia Wingnuttia, in the flesh.

It reminds me of the guy who said I musn’t believe a word from a man who signed a false confession under duress, seeing as he is a self-confessed liar…

46. Larry Teabag – “But just to take this at face value for a second, ‘the Left’ are at fault for obsessing about the failings of the west – ridiculous minutiae such as our elected government’s complicity in torture.”

I don’t think that is my main point, but more importantly our Government is not complicit in torture. The word “complicit” is being used here to try to make it look as if we are to blame. We are not. Alleged torture of a non-British national outside Britain by non-British people has nothing to do with us. Yet you want to claim that we are to blame somehow. Why?

“What they should be doing is facing up to the Islamist menace. OK. But then you and Nick Cohen are making exactly the same mistake, by banging on and on about Amnesty International, of all things. Is AI’s behaviour really the most pressing issue of the day? Don’t you know there’s a war on, damn it?”

Except AI’s behaviour is part of the problem. They are simply not being serious. They are stuck in the phony war stage. They are pretending that we can go on living as if we were at peace. The first stage is to recognise the problem. AI, and by extension a lot of other leftists, refuse to make this first step. Only then can the war be fought.

47. Matthew – “It’s not, obviously. Try searching Google for Amnesty and Cuba and prisons? Or any of the other countries on that list. You must know this, surely?”

For AI? They are not so bad on Cuba. I assume that they are going the way of CND as the Hard Left takes them over. So they have a legacy of people who do care about Communist regimes, but they are retiring. We will see how they go. But that comment was not aimed at AI per se but the Left as a whole. The Guardian, for instance, regularly puts up articles praising Cuba and they get a whole raft of comments going even further. If there is anyone on the Left attacking this it is news to me. Certainly not in Cif’s comments.

48. ukliberty – “Er… jebus, where do we begin? No accountability, no respect for civil liberties (right to a fair trial, right to challenge the circumstances of one’s detention, right not to be incarcerated arbitrarily and made to endure horrible circumstances…).”

And yet, oddly enough, 80 percent of the world has no accountability, no respect for civil liberties and so on. So nothing has changed whatsoever except that the guards on the gates are Western while the prisoners are our enemies. They are not applying those standards to the West. Outside the West no one has any human rights in British law worth a damn anyway. So what has changed? Why is this an issue? If one of these prisoners is brought to the US or the UK they do acquire the full range of civil liberties they are entitled to. So nothing much has changed at all. Why do you care?

And a man who signs a false confession is pretty much a liar by definition. You mean a force confession. If I sign a confession saying me and my neighbour robbed a bookie because I hate my neighbour that would be a lie, no?

They are simply not being serious.

I love the way human rights activists who travel around the world risking their lives to investigate and defend universal human rights are dismissed as not ‘serious’, while loudmouths like Cohen who fart out hyperbole from the safety of their local pub are supposed to have some sort of authority.

SMFS –

Well no they do not. It goes to the heart of what the complaint is.

They do in this instance. As the links I’ve posted demonstrate amply, it’s flatly untrue that “there is no word of criticism from the Left when Islamists [torture]“. As it’s an untruth, I’m not sure how it affects any issue, let alone its heart.

If we are not talking about what really divides us, we need to find out what it is.

The question of US/UK benevolence. You – I’m guessing – think that, when it comes to Islamic terrorism, they’ve generally been a force for good. I don’t. The difference is best illustrated in your recent comment: you accept that the black sites have “no accountability“, but console us with the assertion that “the prisoners are our enemies“. There’s a problem there that I hope we’ll be united in spotting.

Ben

I don’t think people are getting my basic point. Let me suggest that what Nick Cohen is trying to say is that we need to “de-normalise” the Islamists. We need to make it clear to people that their views are vile and unacceptable. That is the first step in fighting terrorism.

Obviously sharing AI’s credibility with Begg does not de-normalise him. On the contrary, it tells every liberal that Begg is a good chap and the sort of fellow you might invite to a dinner party in Hampstead. It normalises him. We have been down this route before. Most people here would support a No Platform For Hate rule as applied to people who want to murder homosexuals and force women back into the kitchen and kill Jews. If they have a White skin. I don’t see why the same rule should not apply to people who support similar views but who happen to be non-White.

At the same time we need to stop “de-normalising” what the West has been doing when it is not justified. It is not as if this is a big issue as no one really cares – Guantanamo died as an issue when Obama was elected because it was never about Gitmo. But the use of the word “complicit” is an obvious attempt to “de-normalise” the British war effort and support the Islamists. By no sane or credible definition of that word was Britain complicit in anything. But that same standard (some British officials saw BM in prison and they shared information with the Americans) Begg is “complicit” in every crime ever committed by the Taliban but of course no one here will make that argument. A double standard is a sign of something else going on.

If AI wants to survive they need to be serious about the war on terror. They need to stop providing a platform for people whose views they claim not to share. End of story. Otherwise they will go the way of the CND which fell silent when Soviet weapons were mentioned and so lost credibility.

51. Larry Teabag – “I love the way human rights activists who travel around the world risking their lives to investigate and defend universal human rights are dismissed as not ’serious’”

Sorry but to whom do you think this description applies? Not AI.

52. BenSix – “They do in this instance. As the links I’ve posted demonstrate amply, it’s flatly untrue that “there is no word of criticism from the Left when Islamists [torture]“. As it’s an untruth, I’m not sure how it affects any issue, let alone its heart.”

Really? No doubt you can point me to all the articles written in the Guardian and the Independent decrying the Islamists use of torture then. Which links are these?

“The question of US/UK benevolence. You – I’m guessing – think that, when it comes to Islamic terrorism, they’ve generally been a force for good. I don’t.”

Indeed. There’s the issue. Given that the US and the UK are massive forces for benevolence, the fact you can ignore all the evidence and claim they are not shows what the problem is. Their records are irrelevant because the driving force of this argument is either an extremely poorly informed and naive view of the world or an irrational hatred.

“The difference is best illustrated in your recent comment: you accept that the black sites have “no accountability“, but console us with the assertion that “the prisoners are our enemies“. There’s a problem there that I hope we’ll be united in spotting.”

They have more accountability than terrorist bombs which are indiscriminate. Has LC ever once put up an article denouncing said bombings? Unite away. People are thrown into prison every day all over the world. With little or no accountability. India and Pakistan regularly turn up people who have spent decades in prison with no one remembering they are there. Without charges usually. No one cares. Except when America does it overseas to people they tend to have good reason to think are terrorists. What is wrong with this picture?

SMFS,

So what has changed?

That we’re doing it.

Why do you care?

Because I think everyone is entitled to due process.

And a man who signs a false confession is pretty much a liar by definition. You mean a force confession.

(Note the words “under duress”.) Sure, we can used ‘forced confession’ if you want. The point is that the man became untrustworthy, he is a self-confessed liar – we mustn’t be neutral about his honesty.

Has LC ever once put up an article denouncing said bombings?

No. Because Sunny and everyone else here supports terrorism and the indiscriminate murder of civilians.

You’re an idiot.

SMFS -

Really? No doubt you can point me to all the articles written in the Guardian and the Independent decrying the Islamists use of torture then. Which links are these?

Sure! See comment 44. Or, heck, you go to the Guardian or Independent’s website, hit up the search bar and throw in “torture” with “Saudi Arabia”, “Egypt” or “Iran”.

Their records are irrelevant because the driving force of this argument is either an extremely poorly informed and naive view of the world or an irrational hatred.

So, I haven’t given my view, and yet you’re convinced that it’s “poorly informed“, “naive” and “irrational“. That’s quite, er – what’s the word? – irrational; poorly informed, as well. We could start the US/UK’s manifestly dishonest invasion of Iraq, which led to the killings of – to put it reservedly – tens upon tens of thousands, made refugees out of millions more and shattered the nation’s infrastructure. Then there’s the lengthy detention of apparent innocents; the torture, in Guantanamo, the Black Sites and Bagram; the collusion with despicable tyrants; the obvious hyping of supposed threats…That’s just the uncontroversial stuff, anyway, and it leads me to believe that the US/UK governments have been a) dishonest and b) extremely immoral, neither of which inspire my confidence.

They have more accountability than terrorist bombs which are indiscriminate.

So?

Has LC ever once put up an article denouncing said bombings

I’ve no idea. What’s your point?

Except when America does it overseas to people they tend to have good reason to think are terrorists.

Without accountability, how do you know?

What is wrong with this picture?

That, while vivid and surreal, it makes no sense and has no particular point. In fact, if I was more of a reactionary, I’d recommend it to the Turner Prize board.

* Uncontroversial in the sense that it’s rarely disputed – at least, not seriously – that the acts took place. The acts themselves were controversial, obviously. Oh, and I missed out a “with“. What a tedious comment this is.

55. ukliberty – “That we’re doing it.”

Except we, in Britain, are not. That the Americans water board is perhaps more of a problem. But we don’t.

“Because I think everyone is entitled to due process.”

And what due process would BM have got if he had been left in the custody of the Pakistanis? It would be nice if everyone in the world was entitled to the same protections that British people are. Maybe we should run a third of the world again. But we don’t and they aren’t. Nothing much has changed except the guards on the gate.

56. Larry Teabag – “No. Because Sunny and everyone else here supports terrorism and the indiscriminate murder of civilians.”

No, because they don’t care that much. It is not a big issue. If they care as much about what Begg has to say as they do about Tancredo, we would have more of the former and less of the latter.

If they care as much about what Begg has to say as they do about Tancredo, we would have more of the former and less of the latter.

Good Lord, I don’t imagine even Sunny thinks that Liberal Conspiracy’s that influential.

@59, you asked why I care, I told you. You say that in some countries people don’t get due process – I know that. Why should I change my mind about thinking that’s a bad thing?

57. BenSix – “Or, heck, you go to the Guardian or Independent’s website, hit up the search bar and throw in “torture” with “Saudi Arabia”, “Egypt” or “Iran”.”

Needless to say they denounce those seen as allies of the US. Saudi Arabia and Egypt get a very short shrift. But Iran does not. It gets an even warmer response in the comments. We know what Iran does, but the wider Guardian just does not care.

“So, I haven’t given my view, and yet you’re convinced that it’s “poorly informed“, “naive” and “irrational“. That’s quite, er – what’s the word? – irrational; poorly informed, as well. We could start the US/UK’s manifestly dishonest invasion of Iraq, which led to the killings of – to put it reservedly – tens upon tens of thousands, made refugees out of millions more and shattered the nation’s infrastructure.”

You have given enough of your view. There was nothing dishonest about America’s invasion of Iraq whatever you think of Blair. And it is opposition to that liberation that has led to the murder of tends of thousands. People who hated Bush caused that. Not Bush. The infrastructure was ruined by sanctions which that invasion ended. None of which changes the basic fact that the US and the UK are basically forces for good in the world.

“Then there’s the lengthy detention of apparent innocents; the torture, in Guantanamo, the Black Sites and Bagram; the collusion with despicable tyrants; the obvious hyping of supposed threats”

And yet Britain and America, having invented and given the world the case against torture, torture least of any major regime I know of. Still doesn’t bother you at all? Because the West has to be perfect otherwise it is worse than Syria? That not a double standard? Innocents are detained all over the world by all sorts of Governments. To the utter indifference of everyone. The US is not adding any new people to that. They are simply doing it for themselves rather than leaving the Third World to it. Those tyrants are usually our former enemies and only exist at all because the West failed to keep them out of power. You are comparing, say, Syria’s massacre at Hama with this alleged hyping of threats and assuming the West is worse? An interesting point of view.

“and it leads me to believe that the US/UK governments have been a) dishonest and b) extremely immoral, neither of which inspire my confidence.”

As I said, naive or irrational. By this standard what Government would pass your test? What Government do you think is better apart from a few Europeans who huddle behind the US Army and the protection it offers?

“I’ve no idea. What’s your point?”

That no one here cares. The issue is not the terrorism or the torture but some other issue. As we can see by the indifference to Abu Ghraib once the US left – even though more people are mistreated there now in all likelihood – and to Gitmo once Bush left the White House.

“Without accountability, how do you know?”

Who cares? I have no idea if everyone in India’s prison system is guilty either. Why do you care about one and not the other?

61. ukliberty – “You say that in some countries people don’t get due process – I know that. Why should I change my mind about thinking that’s a bad thing?”

I don’t care if you think that is a bad thing. It is. The question is why you are not denouncing the Indian government or the Ugandan government or the Cuban regime. Why this is site as a whole so obsessed with denouncing the US and the UK. I mean I am pretty sure that the British government has sent consular officials to talk to British prisoners in China. The guy they executed. By the standards of LC this makes us “complicit”. I don’t see anyone denouncing us for that. Nor do I see AI parading Falun Gong people about the country.

Why is that?

You have not explained why you care so deeply and so disproportionately.

The question is why you are not denouncing the Indian government or the Ugandan government or the Cuban regime.

Um, because originally I was discussing that part of the OP and Cohen’s article that talk about Mohamed, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs [2010] EWCA Civ 65 (10 February 2010). Then we got on to you “what is your problem with [black prisons]“. Would you prefer me to preface my responses to such OPs as “I denounce similar and worse behaviour in China, Uganda, etc”? Would that make my position more credible or worthy?

I think that when I said everyone ought to be entitled to due process it can reasonably inferred that Ugandans and Chinese are wrong when they don’t give people due process.

Oh, and Cubans. I forgot about the Cubans, they are wrong to when they don’t give people due process. Anyone else you’d like me to ‘denounce’?

This is a very odd discussion – Nick Cohen’s article isn’t confused, and at least to me, it isn’t the least bit confusing, and yet people here are claiming it’s both, and Sunny seems to have it completely the wrong way around.

My 50c brief summary of the article:

Human rights are unconditional.

If upholding someone’s human rights means there is a cost (e.g. handing a propaganda victory to our enemies), then that is a cost which we must bear.

The judgement in Binyam Mohamed case was worrying because the judges justified it, at least in part by suggesting that there was was no cost (in the sense of bad consequences for intelligence sharing).

In fact, there should have been no need for the judges to argue this – even if the consequences for intelligence sharing were shown to be severe, human rights should still have been upheld.

Given the judges’ arguments, if subsequently, it can be shown that there are severe consequences, then the judgement would appear to have been undermined.

Nick clearly believes that as well as the judges in this case, AI appear to use the same erroneous, and vulnerable lines of argument.

SMFS,

Let’s go through this point-by-point. Why? Well, mostly because I can’t get to sleep, but also that we might lay this to rest.

Needless to say they denounce those seen as allies of the US. Saudi Arabia and Egypt get a very short shrift. But Iran does not.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

It gets an even warmer response in the comments.

The comments are not “Left“, and I suspect you’ve characterised them falsely, anyhow.

There was nothing dishonest about America’s invasion of Iraq whatever you think of Blair.

A demonstratable falsehood (the thesaurus will have to be brought into action soon). Here, for example, one can marvel at the palpable dishonesty of Colin Powell’s speech to the UN. Here, one can see the dishonesty with which Saddam Hussein was linked to the anthrax letters. Here, one can gawp at the lurid (and dishonest!) contortions of Donald Rumsfeld. Heck, here‘s the full dishonesty thing; Christ, I’ve said “dishonest” more times than Pinocchio in confession.

And it is opposition to that liberation that has led to the murder of tends of thousands. People who hated Bush caused that. Not Bush.

There are two points to be made. Firstly, the US/UK forces killed an awful lot of people, with startling incompetence – and indifference – from the top levels downwards. This is to be expected in a war, of course, and is a damn fine reason for being extremely choosy about the conflicts that one involves a nation in, let alone precipitates. Secondly, the large-scale ethnic violence – only held in check, even now, by the awful reality of “cleansed” neighbourhoods, and the subsequent ghettoisation – could have been avoided had the US/UK not blundered into the country. The instability in which it flourished was a consequence of the invasion.

And yet Britain and America, having invented and given the world the case against torture, torture least of any major regime I know of. Still doesn’t bother you at all? Because the West has to be perfect otherwise it is worse than Syria?

I don’t expect perfection from governments, but if they trick themselves into invasions; mistreat prisoners, brutally; lock away civilians without the slightest recourse and exaggerate the threats that they warn of, I consider it perfectly rational not to gift them with my trust. You haven’t disputed any of those allegations – at least, with anything but bare assertion – you’ve only established a curious false dichotomy between the US/UK and Syria. Yet I, apparently, am the irrational one.

By this standard what Government would pass your test? What Government do you think is better apart from a few Europeans who huddle behind the US Army and the protection it offers?

Test? What test? If I trusted a government to carry out military intervention effectively I’d be an interventionist. As I don’t, I’m not. The rank dishonesty and immorality of many – including the U-S-of-A’s – provides formidable support for that view.

That no one here cares.

I do, as a matter of fact, and suspect that others feel the same. If I give the UK/US more attention – a fair, if tiresome, j’accuse – it’s because a) it’s my government, and their greatest ally, and b) I rarely meet apologists for, say, the Chinese regime, but plenty who’ll defend the US (you’re a shining example in this respect).

Who cares?

The prisoners, those who know them and anyone who gives a shit about truth, justice and the noxious conditions that a lack of the two will create.

…

Phew. Isn’t blogging a waste of time.

Ben
x

Oh, you mean we should defend liberties and human rights except when US national security officials don’t like it? Yes, I can see how people might think that Nick Cohen doesn’t really believe in universal human rights except when it suits him.

No I don’t think he means this at all. He is simply saying that the case for universal human rights cannot be made on utilitarian grounds, which is in my view absolutely correct. He then argues that there’s rather a lot of people pretending this isn’t the case, which is also in my view absolutely correct. It’s rather late and I can’t pretend to have pored over every sentence of his article like some bored theologian but I can’t find a single word or sentence in it that justifies torture – so what is your post all about, exactly?

Sorry, gsej @ 66 but you seem to have read Cohen’s article and summed it up correctly: you have obviously misunderstood the point of this thread, which is to confirm Sunny’s evidence-free interpretation. Don’t you know that willful misinterpretation is the name of the game here?

I made the point that utilitarian arguments against torture leave themselves open to utilitarian counter-arguments and that we should be arguing deontologically against torture – even if torture *was* effective. That’s the point Cohen is making: that *even if torture was proven to be effective and cost free it would still be unacceptable*.

Obviously even translating ‘Let justice come though the Heavens fall’ didn’t make it clear enough. Whatever your disagreements with Cohen at least argue against what he wrote not what you all wish he’d written.

That ‘dog-whistle’ you are hearing is tinnitus.

Cohen’s argument is pure realpolitik . Evil but necessary. He is the Fitzpatrick of journalism.
As for AI, it has made mistakes, of course it has, it is PR nightmare but it is still one of the few organisations that doesn’t identify victims by political or religious categories. They are all victims of torture. Go onto to the AI ebsite and see the campaigns it is running in Arabic countries. Many.
It does saddan me that there are individuals on both side of the arguments who make excuses for their set of torturers. Throughout Cohen’s double talk is the idea that Western torture is more acceptable than Islamic torture because in the end we are the defending western liberal values. I actually feel that is wrong.
As for Cohen’s political journalism, he went to neoconservative and neo liberal right a long time ago. I doubt you can find one difference between Charles Moore and Cohen on any political or economic idea.
My problem with Cohen is necessary his views, or the fact he writes for the Observer (as somebody mentioned it is good to have journalists that go against the political thrust of the paper, I wish some right wing papers would do it) but it is his dishonesty.
Can anybody think that Cohen is left of centre on any issue

Sorry
not necessary his views

If only different factions could kill and subjugate each other in the proper way then all of this cloak and dagger stuff would become unnecessary?
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/secret-service-has-been-trying-to-keep-things-secret%2c-says-judge-201002112461/

Charlieman @ 26 fair point re the dog whistle not existing. I’ll buy that; I think that Nick confuses everyone, including himself, but using such emotive terms as “embracing”.

@ Andrew Adams I don’t think he is advocating the use of torture in any way To be clear, I don’t think he is either. But I don’t think he’s firm enough in opposing it. If you’re against torture, you really have to be against sending people abroad where it may happen, and you have to be clear that sleep deprivation, denial of movement, loud music, and waterboarding all constitute unacceptable “cruel and unusual” treatment, even though they don’t result in broken bones, organ failure etc, and don’t require medieval implements. Both Christopher Hitchens and Norman Geras are quite lucid on this.

“Cohen’s argument is pure realpolitik . Evil but necessary.”

But it isn’t, it is the opposite, he is arguing for a principled defence of human rights regardless of the political consequences.

That is what is strange about this thread. Sunny, I think you should post a brief mea culpa explaining that you misread Nick C’s article, otherwise this begins to look like a deliberate smear. His article argues, several times, the precise opposite of what you claim it does. Given that this is such a serious point, it is beyond incompetence to leave this thread as it is and looks more like deliberate defamatory malice.

Shuggy @ 68. I can’t dispute your interpretation of Nick Cohen: that does seem to be what his opening paragraphs say. However, which people pretend this? Does he mean, for instance, Norman Geras? Geras doesn’t talk about ‘consequences’ or ‘prices’ for his absolutism, is he “pretending” that they don’t exist? And if not Geras, who? I suspect this is yet another straw man.

John
“But it isn’t, it is the opposite, he is arguing for a principled defence of human rights regardless of the political consequences.”
No, he is not he is criticizing judges for upholding universal human rights. Judges are defending an individuals human rights against the organ of the state (MI5) and the political consequences of say the US now not sharing information.
His principled defence of human rights is targeted for one group but not for another.
That is real politik

“However, which people pretend this?”

He means people such as the judges of the Court of Appeal and his is quite explicit about this. It is what prompted this angry article. They should, in his view, have disregarded all political considerations in defending Mohamad’s rights, instead they made a mealy mouthed statement in which they pretended that there would be no political price to pay.

“No, he is not he is criticizing judges for upholding universal human rights. ”

No he isn’t. Please quote the part of the article where you think he does this.

they made a mealy mouthed statement in which they pretended that there would be no political price to pay.

Please cite. And I mean, from the judgement, not from what someone said about the judgement.

“Please cite. And I mean, from the judgement, not from what someone said about the judgement.”

I haven’t read the judgement, I am taking Nick Cohen at his word. If he has misrepresented the judges, then he is in the wrong, but not for what he is being attacked for on here, so Sunny’s article is still mistaken at best and he should apologise. If it is not a mistake, it is a smear.

Yes, because no in-depth argument on utilitarianism and law would be complete without derisive reference to the spineless, easy-life-seeking Polyannas of the judiciary, nor the far left, Islamist-loving metrosexual commies of Amnesty. This is truly the work of a man with no agenda to push and no axes to grind.

The Mohamed judgement is available online for those who care to check it, you know – a quick scan will show that Nick’s summary of the judges’ opinions as Hell, there’ll be no bad consequences for the espionage services, so screw it is an absurd reduction of the case, although perhaps not on par with Nick’s previous masterworks of baldly-misleading bullshit.

Further, I suspect the very reason why the issue of US/UK intelligence was raised at all in the judgement is because the government was leaning heavily on the court to find in their favour on exactly those grounds. Sharp-eyed readers will notice that an intervention by government QC Jonathan Sumption led to the court redrafting a section that HMG found overly critical of MI5. A court caving to the government and changing the wording of its judgement is some stunning stuff, and you can read about it here, if you like… http://bit.ly/9TtN72

So what’s the scandal here? You might think it’d be official complicity in torture and the cover up of same; or perhaps in the government’s attempts to influence the courts, attempts which appear to have been successful. Or, you know, you could crank it right up and go with the US black prison network, the torture, murder and disappearances. The decent human being’s response to these revelations in modern Britain should run the full intellectual gamut from OMG to WTF?.

But then, I suppose a particular type of human rights enthusiast could seize on one section of the Mohamed judgement, subject it to the most violently ungenerous reading possible, then lard it over with an array of hoots and snorts, dire warnings about othe dangers to which we open ourselves to by holding torturers to account, and an outburst of ferocious innuendo at the actually-existing mechanisms and organisations for the protection of human rights.

As I’ve noted twice, Nick has form in this area – see past columns: deportees, torture thereof. I also invite you all to consider what kind of mind considers the outcome of the Mohamed case and pens an article in which our refusal to torture, or to admit to it when we have, is dressed up as both a concession and a weakness, rather than an absolute legal and moral no-no. This is why I still regard it as a dog-whistle piece, and I suspect dropping it into a bear pit like the Spectator of BBC HYS might prove instructive.

For all that some seem to read Nick as making a serious consideration of legal concepts, I see no reason at all to view this column as anything other than a legalistic hook upon which to hang a couple of his few consistent arguments, namely a) screw the liberalz judgez and b) screw the Commies of Amnesty. These aren’t sane or sensible sentiments for any self-declared defender of human rights to espouse unless, of course, your definition of “human rights” differs wildly from everbody else’s.

Well, please take my word for it (if you are not prepared to read the judgement) that the judges spent a number of paragraphs discussing the risk of disclosure and even criticise an earlier court decision as it pertains to this risk. To say that they “pretended that there would be no political price to pay” or that they “comforted themselves with the Pollyannaish notion that there could be no bad consequences for the espionage agencies” (Cohen) is to be guilty of terminological inexactitude.

Sorry, my 83 was addressed to John @81.

“Well, please take my word for it (if you are not prepared to read the judgement) that the judges spent a number of paragraphs discussing the risk of disclosure and even criticise an earlier court decision as it pertains to this risk.”

I am happy to take your word for it, but I don’t see how that affects Cohen’s substantive point that judges have no business taking political consequences into consideration when ruling on human rights and theyu should be bullish on this point. I agree with him, I expect you do too, so why the apparent attmpt to smear him?

“Further, I suspect the very reason why the issue of US/UK intelligence was raised at all in the judgement is because the government was leaning heavily on the court to find in their favour on exactly those grounds.”

That was precisely Nick Cohen’s point, and the judges should not have given these considerations houseroom. Because they did, they have compromised tthe significance of the ruling from a human rights perspective.

John,

I am happy to take your word for it, but I don’t see how that affects Cohen’s substantive point that judges have no business taking political consequences into consideration when ruling on human rights and theyu should be bullish on this point.

I read ‘political consequences’ as meaning national security considerations of a kind advanced by the Government in its submissions to the courts. If that is not what you meant by ‘political consequences’ I don’t know what you mean as I don’t think the court discussed other political consequences.

Cohen claimed that the judges “comforted themselves with the Pollyannaish notion that there could be no bad consequences for the espionage agencies”. I read that as pertaining to national security considerations.

They didn’t comfort themselves, indeed they recognised there was a risk, e.g. para 50:

“Nothing in this judgment should be seen as devaluing the confidentiality principle, and the understanding on which intelligence information is shared between this country and the USA. It is clearly established that the publication of the redacted paragraphs will result in a review of these sharing arrangements. The review might or might not produce a change. There is a clear risk, and the Foreign Secretary believes, that any such review would culminate in new, and from the point of view of national security, disadvantageous arrangements.”

Forgive me but you are discussing a judgement based on a third-party’s apparently faulty account of it.

“Forgive me but you are discussing a judgement based on a third-party’s apparently faulty account of it.”

As I said, I have not read the judgement, and Cohen may have been unfair on the judges, I don’t know. But the substantive point it not affected, judges should not take polkitical interest into acocunt, even if those pertain to national security, when it comes to human rights issues. That is Cohen’s point, but you would not know it from Sunny’s calumniating article.

Cohen may have been unfair on the judges

He wasn’t ‘unfair’ on them, he utterly misrepresented the nature of their judgement. He told bare-faced lies about it, and did so in order to regurgitate his usual boring rant about how the entire Left thinks that Islamist terrorists are “nice metrosexuals”, and only Nick Cohen knows better.

And now you say Sunny is misrepresenting his highly nuanced and principled position – well cry me a river, frankly.

John,

But the substantive point it not affected, judges should not take polkitical interest into acocunt, even if those pertain to national security, when it comes to human rights issues. That is Cohen’s point, but you would not know it from Sunny’s calumniating article.

If it is Cohen’s point that judges should not take national security into account when it comes to human rights issues he is quite, quite wrong.

“If it is Cohen’s point that judges should not take national security into account when it comes to human rights issues he is quite, quite wrong.”

You might think so, I am sure many people do, but Cohen was writing an article for a liberal newspaper making the other case (where I agree with him). My only beef is that Sunny has tried to present Cohen as holding your position which is beyond unfair.

That was precisely Nick Cohen’s point, and the judges should not have given these considerations houseroom. Because they did, they have compromised tthe significance of the ruling from a human rights perspective.

(First up, I’m nobody’s lawyer, although I have a layman’s knowledge of criminal and civil law – everything that follows could be shot down quite easily, if the person doing so understands how English courts work better than I do. Which wouldn’t be hard).

This is more or less what I meant by implying that Nick’s definitition of “human rights” may differ wildly from anybody elses. Human rights has a specific meaning depending on context, and while this case appears to have human rights elements (European Convention on) – as pretty much any case featuring the use of the word “torture” and “government” will – it looks primarily like a glorified freedom of information request.

Thus I’m finding it difficult to see how this judgement in any way restricts human rights. Nick may well mean “freedom of information” or even “liberty”, but that’s a very different matter indeed. Nor do I accept that the judgement sets a standard for what may or may not be released, since this seems to me to fatally misunderstand the role of case law, and even if it did it wouldn’t infringe human rights as commonly understood in UK courts at all, AFAICS.

Further, I find it absolutely impossible to believe that a court can release these kind of restricted documents without considering national security issues. A government that made no provision for withholding privileged information and a judiciary that just released everything they were asked to would be insane. The idea that the court is delinquent for giving the government’s case serious consideration looks loopy to me.

(There is the issue of a government lawyer convincing the court to tone down its criticisms of MI5, but you’ll notice Nick never mentions this).

I offer a different thesis – that the government just got handed its arse in court after trying to keep torture-related issues secret; that the court rejected its national security objections; and that Nick is now flailing for a way to depict himself as the defender of human rights, while portraying judges who have exposed HMG’s and MI5′s complicity with torturers as somehow attacking liberty itself, rather than obviously protecting it.

As evidence, I offer the deeply odd waffle about Pollyanna judges choosing to pretend that their actions have no consequences, despite the fact they go into this at great length in their published judgements; Nick’s confusion over what is and isn’t a human right; and his tendency to label everyone except the government with pejoratives. In other words, this is yet another hook for Nick to hang his weird, pre-existing opinions on.

If anyone thinks that’s unfair, I’ll point you to Nick’s summary of the judgement, which strays beyond unfair, blunders past misleading and vanishes into deep, deep bullshit territory.

“If anyone thinks that’s unfair”

It is not so much unfair as incoherent. Nick C has written an article demanding a stronger and more categorical defence of human rights by the courts and others. Why anyone would want to misrepresent that as something else I don’t know. I can see FlyingRodent that you are upset that the judges have been criticised and I know from other threads that you hold authority figures in a sort of semi-religious reverence, but really, this is daft.

Nick C has written an article demanding a stronger and more categorical defence of human rights by the courts and others.

That may be what it looks like at first glance, but his assertions don’t bear much relation to the content of the judgement itself. I won’t say any more because my reading of the case may well be wildly inaccurate and idiotic – hopefully there’s an LC reader with more legal expertise than I have who can clear some of this up.

‘No, he is not he is criticizing judges for upholding universal human rights’

No he fucking isn’t, he’s criticising the judges for defending human rights purely in *utilitarian* terms.

His point is that in the claim ‘torture is wrong because…’ doesn’t need a ‘because’ The ‘because’ is entirely redundant. If you have to rationalise an opposition to torture you have already conceded half your argument. Torture is simply, utterly wrong in any circumstances.

If anyone thinks they need a *reason* not to torture someone can they please put their hands up now?

John,

Nick C has written an article demanding a stronger and more categorical defence of human rights by the courts and others. Why anyone would want to misrepresent that as something else I don’t know

Cohen has badly misrepresented the Court of Appeal’s judgement – his article is flawed in a number of places. Perhaps that is why I’m struggling to comprehend it. I’ve made no comment on Sunny’s position.

Fine, if Cohen’s point is that “judges should not take political interest into acocunt, even if those pertain to national security, when it comes to human rights issues”, there is something we can argue about. But he also said the judges “comforted themselves with the Pollyannaish notion that there could be no bad consequences for the espionage agencies”. This is manifestly untrue as is evident by the large number of paragraphs where the risk is discussed.

He said that Lord Neuberger “pooh-poohed” Miliband’s concerns. This is not true as per my previous paragraph.

He said that Neuberger found it “impossible to believe that the US government would object to the publication” by the English courts”. This is untrue, this was an argument from Mohamed’s solicitors.

He said that “According to the Mohamed judgment, a man’s right to obtain evidence that he has been tortured depends on whether the judges think that it may harm the intelligence services.” This is untrue – “There is no secret about the treatment to which Mr Mohamed was subjected while in the control of the US authorities. We are no longer dealing with the allegations of torture and ill-treatment: they have been established in the judgment of the court, publicly revealed by the judicial processes within the USA itself”. The case was not about Mohamed’s torture in itself!

Anyone would think that Cohen had read a different judgement if indeed he had bothered to read it at all. If only he had been as clear and concise as gsej @ 66 – we’d be having a different and perhaps more interesting discussion (the conditionality or otherwise of human rights).

No he fucking isn’t, he’s criticising the judges for defending human rights purely in *utilitarian* terms.

Correct. And they didn’t do that. Therefore Cohen is full of shit.

Here are some quotes from the judgement:

“My Lords, torture is not acceptable. This is a bedrock moral principle in this country. For centuries the common law has set its face against torture…”

“The use of torture is dishonourable. It corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it…”

The rejection of torture has “a constitutional resonance for the English people which cannot be over-estimated”.

Etc.

John / Shatterface
The first section is a utilitarian argument, so I apologize. I was wrong. Whether Cohen believes in that, is another argument but you are right we can only judge this article not others
Although I don’t agree with the second section on Amnesty

Shatterface,

No he fucking isn’t, he’s criticising the judges for defending human rights purely in *utilitarian* terms.

In what way did they do this?

Torture is simply, utterly wrong in any circumstances.

Paras 14-20 of the judgement quote and endorse legal authorities that agree: “[torture] is condemned, in effect on the grounds of common humanity”; “There is no law to warrant tortures in this land, nor can they be justified by any prescription being so lately brought in”; “the principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel the exclusion of third party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to administer justice”; “torture is not acceptable. This is a bedrock moral principle in this country. For centuries the common law has set its face against torture”; “The use of torture is dishonourable. It corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it.”

There is no point arguing the toss about the wording of the Mohamed judgement because it does not matter to the point in hand. I am glad, at least, that commenters on here concede that Cohen’s article cannot in any sense be read as a defence of or mitigation of torture but is, in fact, the opposite.

There is no point arguing the toss about the wording of the Mohamed judgement because it does not matter to the point in hand.

It matters to the question of whether Cohen is advancing an honest and credible argument, or simply flinging around bogus accusations of appeasement and apologism like he always does.

“It matters to the question of whether Cohen is advancing an honest and credible argument”

No it doesn’t, the argumant stands on its own merits. If the judges are less culpable than Cohen thinks, then good, but his argument stands: human rights must be defended categorically.

The attempts to smear Cohen even after accepting that he didn’t say any of the things he has been accused of are pathetic.

Excuse me?

Cohen has written a column in which he calls the judges “spineless” “Pollyannaish” being motivated solely by a “desire for an easy life” and standing on the edge of “the greatest betrayal of all”.

And this is all on the basis of him either being too lazy to read their judgement, being too thick or drunk to understand it, or simply deciding to lie about it. Whatever the answer, it’s a disgraceful performance from a hack with a long record of similar distortions.

And now you come here, boo-hooing that he is being misreprented and smeared?? The only possible reaction is to guffaw at your brass-neck.

“Cohen has written a column in which he calls the judges “spineless” “Pollyannaish” being motivated solely by a “desire for an easy life” and standing on the edge of “the greatest betrayal of all”.”

Cohen has written an article demanding a principled adherence to human rights. As one exmple of the failure as he sees it to do that, he cites the aappeal court judges. I don’t know whether he has been fair or not about that judgement (but I don’t find the idea of the appellate court being poor defenders of human rights beyond all possibility) but his argument does not depend on it. You are changing the subject because you are motivated by ad hominem hostiltiy towards Cohen and not the points he addresses.

“And now you come here, boo-hooing that he is being misreprented ”

He is being misrtepresented. Sunny’s comment claims that Cohen’s article is in mitigation of the use of torture when it isn’t. That is misrepresentation, incompetence if accidental, a smear if purposeful.

Ok, well next time I read a Nick Cohen article I’ll be sure to set aside the venemous personal attacks, the wilful misrepresentations, the bare-faced lies, and the all-consuming egomania, and give the underlying argument my careful consideration. If there’s anything left, that is.

“Ok, well next time I read a Nick Cohen article I’ll be sure to set aside the venemous personal attacks, the wilful misrepresentations, the bare-faced lies, and the all-consuming egomania”

If you can learn to leave these apsects of your personality to one side, I think you will begin to understand what you are reading instead of being so eaten up with envy and anger (or whatever it is that has you so twisted around ) that you end up railing against a shadow.

Thanks. Incidentally you’ve now twice that you “don’t know whether he has been fair or not about that judgement”.

That’s the main plank of his argument that you’re conveniently refusing to form an opinion on. It’s also my primary complaint against him – that he has been grossly unfair about the judgement, and that even the most superficial scanning of the text would show as much.

Since you’re determined to remain in blissful ignorance of the context in which Cohen’s article was written, and the grounds on which I am objecting to it, you won’t mind if I file your opinions on the subject in the dustbin.

as i’ve said it’s pretty clear that cohen had an all-new rehash of harry’s place posts about amnesty ready to go, but was presumably told fairly late in the day that it’s old news and he’d better do the binyam Mohamad case too.

He obviously hadn’t read the ruling in full, but just cherrypicked a bit which suited his prejudices about the British judiciary.

This is why nobody seems to be able to work out the core message of the piece – becuase it is, essenaitlly, two almost contradictory pieces shunted together, with a whole load of condemnatory wind where yer actual links should be.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet (I think) is that a court judgment isn’t an opinion column in a newspaper.

The judges may have considered the “utilitarian” reasons the government offered not because they are utilitarians when it comes to questions of rights, but because – whatever we think about political morality, all things considered – these are the kinds of considerations that are widely considered to have legal weight in this kind of case, and, therefore, that judges will have to consider in a satisfactory legal ruling. If we have a problem with that, we should take it out on the legal system, or the legal tradition as a whole, not on these particular judges.

For example (just by way of illustration – not that this is relevant in the current case)), several of the clauses in the European Convention on Human Rights explicitly allow that enjoyment of the specified rights can be legitimately restricted with reference to national security considerations. Nick Cohen (in his current mood) may not like that, because human rights are universal, non-consequentialist, etc., but that’s what the ECHR says, and anyone who wants to deal with European human rights law as it stands (rather than as they’d like it to be) has to address the issues it raises.

As Sunny says, though, NC’s a terrible person to be giving this kind of lecture, given his equivocations in the past on what are pretty open-and-shut questions of basic political morality — the column about deportation being a particular disgrace.

@ Shatterface, John Meredith, Andrew Adams

There might be reasons for wanting to give a utilitarian defence of rights and opposition to torture. One reason might be that you think that rights have value for utilitarian reasons, and that torture is wrong for utilitarian reasons. This might not be a popular view, but people hold it.

It’s also a view that comes up for discussion a lot, as AA has noted already. Many people faced with a “ticking time-bomb” view will take it seriously, and most who do will not be convinced by “well, torture is just fundamentally wrong”. If you want to convince those people, you will have to give a consequence based argument against torture, particularly the “ticking time-bomb” argument which is not strong.

And now you come here, boo-hooing that he is being misreprented and smeared?? The only possible reaction is to guffaw at your brass-neck.

No, there’s another possible reaction and it is to acknowledge that while you may not like Nick Cohen nor the article he written, he has argued for a non-utilitarian defence of human rights and this has been misrepresented on Liberal Conspiracy, plain and simple. I would say deliberately but I’m assuming it’s just pure laziness on Mr Hundal’s part. Let’s remind ourselves of what Sunny wrote:

“Oh, you mean we should defend liberties and human rights except when US national security officials don’t like it? Yes, I can see how people might think that Nick Cohen doesn’t really believe in universal human rights except when it suits him.

I can see why people might think Nick Cohen doesn’t really believe in human rights if they can’t be bothered to read his article properly. Sunny clearly hasn’t read it properly yet most of this thread is taken up by people pretending this isn’t the case. This blog often carries posts claiming smears and misrepresentations of various kinds, whether it be by Harry’s Place or the Tories or evil climate change ‘denialists’ or whoever. Yet this is an example of precisely the same thing. I would have thought some kind of retraction or even an apology might be in order?

Another thing: I’m a member of Amnesty International and will probably continue to remain such but it is not above criticism and I happen to think the ones made in this case are valid – yet some of you are behaving as if to do so was akin to kicking a puppy of something.

Just because someone’s religion guarantees him eternal paradise, ten thousand slaves, seventy-two virgins and a thick carpet for killing us, it doesn’t mean we can torture him.

AI is right to accord these putative martyrs the respect they are due, at least before they have found a target.